


Two Nightmares and a Dream

by tapioca_two_step



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Angst and Feels, Ending C: The Third Way, Franklin Clinton is not here for your shit, Gen, Michael de Santa is a sad sack, Trevor Philips just wants to be loved, like two words' worth of explicit language, something sensible, the time has come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:14:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28923399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tapioca_two_step/pseuds/tapioca_two_step
Summary: The time Trevor died.The time Michael died.And the time they didn't.Three small scenes in the lives of the Unholy Trinity.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Two Nightmares and a Dream

** whatever it takes **

He accompanies Franklin out of a sick sense of loyalty. To whom, he doesn’t know. But when the kid can’t take the shot, he does. He keeps his eyes fixed on Trevor, until his flailing body stiffens and his furious screams stick in his blistering throat. Something coils in Michael’s long-empty chest, tighter, tighter. He wonders, he _hopes_ , if he’s finally having that coronary.

“He was your best friend, dog.” Franklin has the gall to sound accusatory as they walk away.

Yeah. His best friend. A man who would eat out of the garbage and shit behind public dumpsters. A man who’d held him at gunpoint, who’d left him for dead in a meat-processing factory. Who’d gotten a tattoo in memory of him, who’d mourned him for a decade. Him. Lying, fake, piece of shit, Saint Michael Townley.

The man who walks away from the oil fields that night is not the same one who entered it, even though he returns to the same house and the same family and the same vices—although these last become much more subdued. Gone are the day drinking binges and the sex-addled hookers at night. He spends most of his time at Solomon’s studio, wearing sunglasses and a gray silk suit, but when he comes home he eats dinner and watches movies in the living room with his family. One night, Amanda asks him if he’d prefer if her tits were smaller. In response, he fucks her so hard the headboard dents the wall. She limps to the bathroom afterwards, giggling, as Michael lays on his back with his forearm draped over his eyes.

Sometimes he paces at night. By morning, his blue eyes are made stark by dark circles and the paved driveway is littered with crushed cigarette butts that the gardener has to clean up. Sometimes he goes to the beach and stands just out of reach of the tide, his mind reeling over his decisions—from holding that pistol to the back of Franklin’s head in Jimmy’s car to tearing out of the Union Depository’s parking garage with two hundred million dollars in gold swinging through the air overhead. There had been a moment—just a moment—when he thought he had the strength to be a new man. When he thought he could exorcise Michael Townley’s ghost forever and finally be a good person. A good husband. A good friend.

But now, his affection for Franklin is gone, his bright hope for the future blighted, and the dream life he is living is nothing more than another lie he tells himself that he wants. Eventually he begins to believe it. After all, all Michael ever wanted was to escape reality.

So when he killed Trevor, Michael stopped living, and began surviving.

** like family **

It’s dawn. The clear sky is soft, hazy pink, a sweet pastel color that has no business over a city like Los Santos. Trevor Phillips is in the alley behind the Vanilla Unicorn, pissing directly on the brick wall of his brothel, because why the fuck not. He’s marking his territory. If it’s acceptable for animals to do, that’s all the excuse that he needs. If he'd had a best friend who gave a shit about him, that person would probably be here right now bitching at him about how fucking disgusting he was being, and giving him a big morality speech about how humans aren't animals. And he doesn't have anyone like that any more, so he doesn't have to give a shit. Lucky him. 

When he’s done, he adjusts his grey sweatpants and gropes his way towards the back door. He is very drunk. He has been for days.

His tattooed fingers are trying to figure out how to fit his key into the deadbolt when the hairs on his neck suddenly stand on end. Adrenaline fights its way through the alcohol swirling in his veins and lends him momentary sobriety. He looks over his shoulder and sees Franklin standing at the junction of the alley and the main road. 

The kid has an ugly cut on his browbone, and his dark skin is blotched with a bruise that stretches from his forehead to his temple. They are healing wounds, incurred days prior, and maybe if Trevor hadn’t seen Franklin face-to-face he could have kept on lying to himself about what had happened. Now, though. Now he knows the truth.

“Look who it is,” he says through a sandpaper throat. “The traitor.”

The side of Franklin’s mouth twists down. Trevor watches the kid’s muscular shoulders tense under his clean white T-shirt. Then he rolls his head sharply to the side and Trevor thinks, _Ah, there’s Michael._

“You here to take me out, too?” he continues, his tone dry.

Franklin’s dark, deep-set eyes lift to his. “Don’t do me like that, man,” he says. “I could’a come after you. I was given a choice and I chose Michael.”

The world begins to tilt a little so Trevor braces himself against the door. “He chose you first. Chose to teach you every fuckin’ thing he knew.” The importance of preparation. The value of putting shots on target. The innumerable benefits of being a _fucking snake—_

Franklin’s eyes are ink-black, devoid of guilt or innocence, and the words he uses are careful as steps placed on cracked ice. “He was just using me the whole time, dog. He could’a turned on me any second. You yourself was always going on about what a flake he was. He couldn’t be trusted.”

The sky is slowly losing its blush. _And now_ , Trevor thinks, _I can't trust you._

He hadn't realized that Franklin had been such a perceptive student, but here he was, the walking, talking disciple of Michael Townley's gospel. 

_If you have a past you want to get rid of, all you've got to do is get rid of everyone who shared it with you._

"You stay away from me, Franklin." His tone drops, becoming dangerous. "If you don't, I don't know what I'll do." 

Franklin's chest visibly rises and falls. He doesn't acknowledge the order, but after a beat, he turns to go.

Trevor squeezes his eyes shut. _Don't ask don't ask don't ask--_ "Hey. Wait."

Franklin turns back around and waits. 

"What...what happened with your face?" 

The kid's mouth twists to the side. The sky has become harsh yellow-white, showing the beginnings of another brilliant day.

“I tried to pull him back up, man,” Franklin finally says. “He wouldn’t let me.”

He walks away. Trevor, drunk and alone, is left in the alley under the bright impersonal sky, to come to grips with the second death of his best friend. 

** for life **

Sometimes Franklin can’t stand hanging out with these two old motherfuckers.

“Don’t you fucking puke on my car, man!” He swerves around a moped and skids onto Hawick Avenue. Horns from the intersection full of cars he just cut off rend the air. 

“Don’t insult him like that, Frank!” The words are shouted directly into his ear, along with an unpleasant waft of boozy breath. "Mikey 'ere can hold his liquor almost as good as me!"

'Mikey', sitting in the front passenger seat with his head and shoulders hanging out of the rolled-down window, hasn't been holding his liquor for the better half of the night, and it's completely Trevor's fault. After hearing that Michael had actually stayed completely sober for two months in a row, Trevor had called the three of them together for a guy's night out, promising Michael in the spirit of solidarity that they'd only be drinking soda and "maaaaaybe a highball". 

"He's not supposed to be holding _any_ liquor, man!" Franklin snaps, elbowing Trevor off the center console and back into his seat. His ears pick up the sound of Michael retching over the passing traffic and he winces. "Fuck!"

"Mikey!" Trevor wails, betrayal cracking his voice. "You're supposed to be a better man than this!"

Michael pushes himself back into the car, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his suit jacket. The neon signs flashing by make the sweat gleam on his lined forehead, but his blue eyes are blazing hard. "I'm going to fucking kill you, Trevor," he croaks.

"What did I do?"

"You started by _spiking_ his Coke, man!" Franklin glares at Trevor in the rear-view mirror. "After you went on and on about how you were going to turn over a new leaf too and be a _sober_ friend because _sober_ friends actually _like_ each other when they're not drunk and all that bullshit and then twenty minutes later you were both doing rainbow shots off of a stripper's stomach!" 

Michael groans, burying his face in his hands. "Oh, God. Don'...don' tell 'Manda."

"She already knows! I called her and told her I was bringing you _home!_ " Franklin says. With one hand he reaches into the center console and pulls out a bottle of water, tossing it in Michael's lap. "You two assholes is worse than a couple of dumbass teenagers, shit." 

"Amanda won't mind," Trevor says, sagging onto his side in the back seat as Michael takes baby sips of water. "She's such understanding ex-stripper."

"Talk about my wife like that again and you'll be an ex-living person." Michael's insults are garbage when he's drunk but he somehow manages to sound threatening. 

"Oh-ho, big tough Mikey." Trevor lifts his leg and begins kicking the back of Michael's seat with his cracked leather boot. "Big! Tough! Mikey! Big--"

"Don't mark up my car with your dirty-ass shoes!" Franklin thunders, and looks up just in time to see the light ahead switch from yellow to red. Both of his feet slam down on the brake. His custom armored tires shriek on the asphalt. Trevor's thrown onto the floor and Michael's open water bottle goes flying, exploding all over the inside of the windshield and soaking them both.

As the traffic begins to cross the road in front of them--and not just a few of them looking very pointedly at Franklin's white Bravado--Franklin glares at the two men in his car, his hands locked around the steering wheel. "I'm about to throw both y'all asses out in the street if you don't fucking quit your bullshit!"

"Sorry, Frank." Michael is trying to mop up the water pouring off the dashboard with futile dabs of a handkerchief pulled from the pocket of his silk jacket.

"Guys, I think I busted my nose," comes Trevor's muffled voice from the back. "It looks like someone got murdered back here. Seriously. Looks just like the time I--"

"I'll pay for your car to get cleaned," Michael interrupts, settling back into his seat with a groan. "And don' worry. I'm never doin' this again."

The light turns green. They resume their trip, more carefully than before. There's shuffling in the back as Trevor drags himself into his seat. "You'll do it again," he says, slurring, confident. "Cuz I'm gonna take you guys out again."

"You need to take yourself to fucking rehab," Michael says, but there is no animosity in his voice. His eyes are closed. "Slower, please, Frank. Unless you want to let me out to puke this time."

"How in the fuck did I end up blowing my Saturday being the designated driver for you two assholes?" Franklin mutters under his breath.

"Guess you were just lucky enough to make friends with us," is Trevor's answer. His smiling reflection in the rear view mirror shows his lower face painted with blood. He looks like a fucking maniac. Moreso than usual.

"Man, I need to make better friends then," Franklin mutters, resting his cheek in one hand.

"We're the best friends you're ever gonna have, Frank!" Trevor says, draping himself over the center console once more. "You might as well tell everyone else to fuck off! We're the three amigos! The three compadres! The three el perros! The three, uh, fuck-juevos! The three--" 

"I tried to get rid of him before," Michael says, in a moment of painful drunken honesty. Trevor is still making up Spanish words and doesn't hear him. "It didn't work. We're all stuck together for life."

Franklin looks seriously at the man beside him, and then turns his attention back to the road. 

"Fine with me," he says, and means it.

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyyyo, it's me, who looks at a game like GTA:V and says, "This'll make some good angst." 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
